Self-Assessment of Hearing Disabilities and Handicaps in Retired Japanese Self Defense Force Officials

Abstract

Self-assessment using HEARING DISABILITIES AND HANDICAP SCALE (HDHS) and pure tone audiometric testing were carried out in 114 retired Japanese self defense force officials (51-54-year-old). There were 20% of subjects with normal hearing and 80% with hearing impairment. Hearing impaired group showed a significantly high value of HDHS score (p<0.05) than the normal group. But the degree of correlation between the pure tone average and the HDHS score was low (r=0.31).
The subjects complained of the hearing disabilities (especially in speech), but denied of their handicaps.